I propose the flaming tuba be dubbed a margrittephone.

I'm sure I've just done a wonderful job of pointing out the joke and thus killed it as well.

Any time I see a tapir, I'm reminded of a little in-joke with my siblings regarding a certain part in The Amazon Trail 3rd Edition PC game (cousin to the more engaging Oregon Trail game), which we got for free on a cereal box. We've gravitated to a particular line from a myth about the tapir that a native storyteller imparts upon the player: "The tapir was faaaaaat!" Fat, and in paradise, apparently.

(That double entendre made me groan. Awesome show, great job!)

That's not a tuba. It's a sousaphone.

There ARE limits to the things that fire makes cool. Wow!

A Flaming Tuba? Beautiful! Now we're well on the way to making an entire flaming marching band.

If you appreciate flaming instruments, do a search on flickr for pyrobone.

The Pyrobone was crafted by my friend Will and I back in 1999 when we were seniors in high school.

I know I'm doing this anonymously, that isn't because I want to--it's because I can't login for some reason...

But that Tapir Massager is hotter than the Flaming tuba.

That's not a tuba. It's a sousaphone. Still fun! But not a tuba-maba.

uh-oh. this has cadets of bergen county written all over it. watch for this next season, folks.

and, more importantly, i aged out so i don't get to play the flaming contrabass bugle! tarnation!

There are actually other flame thrower sousaphones in the world! Illinois State University has had a whole section of them for years.

You've inspired me to set my flute on fire....

And I could watch that Tapir massage all day! Man, that looks soothing.....

Make sure Magritte gets that royalty check!

The flaming sousaphone (is that a King or a Buescher?) segment reminds me of a great Bizarro Sunday comic from a few years ago - "If Jimi Hendrix played tuba" ... showing Hendrix at Monterey, lighting up a tuba, and then the followers he inspired in the ensuing decades.

As for the tapir massage, I have the clip when it was posted awhile back with the Hawaiian guitar soundtrack, and it's that version that I have on my laptop to play whenever I'm getting bored or stressed out ... be the tapir, be the tapir.

Well, I just HAVE to comment . . .

Thanks for all your nice replies. But I would like to say -- a sousaphone IS a tuba! It's the same instrument, just bent into a different shape. All sousaphones are tubas -- but not all tubas are sousaphones!

So -- Flaming Tuba has a tighter sound, doesn't it, hmmm?

Oh, and it's a King. Got it off eBay. A great horn that I ruined.

Also:

Yes, I worked on Turbo Teen with unbelievably talented artists: John Doorman, Jim Woodring, Tom Minton, Dan Riba, Brian Chen, Thom Enriquez, and Duncan Marjoribanks -- whom I assisted (character design). I didn't direct on that. I believe John Kimball did (son of Ward). The thing is, here were all these amazing talents -- many who later worked at Disney and WB -- paid to churn out crap! But we did laugh our heads off, it was a hilarious crew!

Quite some time I have seen somebody playing "Oops I did it again" on a flaming tuba - OK sousaphone - at burning man. Help me clear my question at
http://www.merlinsilk.com/2007/10/26/one-or-two-tubatrons-flaming-tubas/

Merlin

dear god, this is so much better then just decorating my sousaphone with garlands for the local christmas parade.

where was this wonderful idea when I was in highschool, darn it!

Yup, a sousaphone is just a tuba coiled around so it's easier to carry. Props to John Philip Sousa!

A church I used to belong to had a small orchestra for Xmas and Easter. For several years our tuba player was a guy with a WHITE sousaphone. Looked weird, but manohman, the dude could play!

I just had a mental image of Jimi Hendrix playing a flaming tuba — that's some monster bong, man! Cheech and Chong would be proud.

While I sat watching the man burn on Saturday night in early September, my mother sat comfortably on her couch at home and watched it on her TV set live.
Now on boingboing tv is showing burners and burning man related stuff. What does this all mean?
I'm not particularly sure, there's the idea that burning man is full of shit now and it's lost what it was supposed to be about. I agree with some of that.
Then you can look at the fact that so many people are going to it and now it's becoming popular culture. With that happening people are being exposed to different ways of life and maybe even learning to accept each other and respect each other a little more... I agree with some of that too.
It's an enigma that I haven't fully wrapped my mind around, I have opinions, I think some of you out there have opinions, whether you've gone or not. I guess I'm asking for your opinions, I'm gonna post this on my blog and would love to start a discussion if people are interested.
What is Burning Man? What does it mean? Is it a force for positive change? Is it, the event, entering popular culture a good thing or a bad thing? There's so many questions I can't ask them all here, but get on my blog, ask your own questions.
Does Burning Man even deserve a discussion group?
heh heh
my blog is at http://www.myspace.com/papabearcircus look under my blog entries. Thanks!
Papa Bear

Papa Bear, that range of questions about Burning Man got a workout here around the time of the event itself, but there was certainly room for more breadth and depth of discussion.

You know, you could set up a web page and encourage the discussions you want to hear. I know someone who for years ran a program-intensive SF and fantasy convention so that he could have the people he wanted to listen to discuss the questions that interested him.